


Let me go

by DmitriMolotov, KingFarbauti



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Drowning, FAHC, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, Gen, I'm so sorry, Take a Deep Breath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7758589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DmitriMolotov/pseuds/DmitriMolotov, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingFarbauti/pseuds/KingFarbauti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7450627">I'll Drown</a>" as told through Ryan's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let me go

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I'll Drown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450627) by [KingFarbauti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingFarbauti/pseuds/KingFarbauti). 



> Ryan read a poem 'Not Waving, but Drowning" on his stream.  
> Things happened and now this exists...

_Ryan could smell the smoke before he saw it; he heard the screaming of the cargobob’s alarms before he heard Jack’s panicked cries of ‘No! No!’; he recalled his gaze finding Jeremy’s own, he remembered the absolute terror in the younger man’s face as the two shared a horrifying, unified thought. We’re crashing._

_Normally, in this situation—because they had been in this situation before—the crew would equip their parachutes, gather their belongings, jump, and hope for the best. But this heist had carried them far out across the ocean, far away from any signs of life, away from any help._

_Everyone seemed to collectively decide whether or not the parachutes were worth it; the fall from this height would be enough to break bones, but what were a few broken bones when there was no hope of reaching the shore?_

_In the end, there were mixed decisions._

_Gavin hurriedly equipped his iconic parachute, after a bit of goading from Michael’s screaming tones, and the Brit more or less tripped his way out of the plummeting cargobob. Michael went soon after, and Ryan could see their forms sailing away as fast as the wind could carry them. It wouldn’t be enough._

_Geoff was preoccupied, screaming at Jack to abandon her attempts at a gentle landing, and to escape while she could. Geoff threatened to heed his own advice, but Ryan knew; Geoff would never leave her._

_So enraptured in his militant observation of everyone around him, Ryan hadn’t even begun to think of his own escape, or to notice the quickly approaching water. There was more water than sky, now, and had he been aware, Ryan would have worried._

_A hand roughly grabbed his arm, and his heterochromic eyes found Jeremy’s again._

_“Ryan!” The shorter man cried frantically, “We gotta-!”_

_His words were lost; swallowed by the sea as the cargobob crashed nose-first into the choppy waves with an impressive explosion. It was the water that had ultimately saved them from immediate incineration, but it couldn’t save them from stray burns._

* * *

 

Ryan was briefly disoriented in the churning white water that rushed through the hull of the cargobob. He was thrown violently against the wall of the chopper, hitting the back of his head hard against the steel fuselage, and his vision exploded into starburst.

He felt cold and heavy and slow and his eyes stung as he blinked them open.

The first thing he noticed was the absence of Jeremy’s hand on his arm.

The second thing he noticed was that there was no more air.

The cargobob had rapidly filled with water in the few moments he was stunned. He couldn’t see Jeremy, they’d been near the side door when they’d hit the water, he might have been thrown clear of the wreckage. Ryan could only hope he’d gotten to safety.

Geoff hadn’t been able to get Jack out in time; he hadn’t been able to convince her to leave the controls, trying everything she could to regain control of the chopper before it went down. Ryan could see the dark silhouettes of their forms in the front compartment that had already flooded with water. They were too still. His stomach flipped and he immediately went for them.

He swam to the side door, thankful Geoff had already opened it in a hopeful attempt to jump at the last minute. Ryan roughly manhandled Geoff out of the wreckage, his buoyancy in the water a relief, as he then tugged Jack free of the steadily-sinking chopper by her arm.

Jack’s Hawaiian shirt snagged on a piece of wreckage, pulling her from his grasp. Ryan fumbled at her arm, trying to maintain his hold on her, but it felt like she was weighed down. Even in the dark water, Ryan could see the blood pouring from her body. Then he noticed the length of rotor blade protruding from her abdomen. He blinked a few times to make sure it was real; not entirely trusting his senses.

_Jack… no._

He looked back to Geoff, floating a little way above him and knew he had to make the call. With a heavy heart he let her go and pushed Geoff towards the surface.

He couldn’t hold his breath anymore.

He gasped, feeling the briny liquid fill his mouth and nasal cavity, stinging his sinuses from the inside out. Whatever little air remained in his lungs, his body used to try to expel the salty water from his airways, but there was no respite.

He forced himself to keep kicking, keep pushing Geoff to the surface.

His head ached and his vision was going dark, fuzzy around the edges. It was cold and he felt heavy and sleepy, like it wasn’t quite worth the effort…

_Maybe it wasn’t._

His hand hit something hard as he reached towards the surface and he scrabbled against it, fingers walking their way along the metal, feeling for an edge. He found it. With the last of his strength he pushed Geoff up onto the floating piece of flotsam, praying it would be enough to keep him above the choppy water, and kicked himself towards the surface.

His head broke the surface and the sunlight was blinding.

The world around him closed in, pressing whiteness enveloping him, cleansing him of feeling and pain and warmth.

He felt nothing.

For the first time, even his mind stilled.

It was so peaceful here. Suspended, supported by the weight of water pressing all around him. A final earthly embrace.

But something tugged at the corner of his mind, insistently, like a child demanding attention and he couldn’t simply ignore it.

Jeremy’s arm snaked around his waist and pulled him to the surface.

He willed himself to open his eyes. To breathe, to cough the putrid water from his lungs, suck in a sweet breath of salty sea air.

But he didn’t.

He felt nothing and he felt everything. He couldn’t open his eyes, but he didn’t need to, he could see everything from outside himself, as if watching a movie. Jeremy had pulled him to the surface and was gripping his unconscious body, barely struggling to keep his own head above the water.

 _They looked like a twisted version of_ _Michelangelo’s_   _'Pietà’._

He would have scoffed at the thought of being compared to Jesus. But in a bleak and morbid way, he supposed it was befitting, the statue had originally been commissioned for the French Cardinal, Jean de Bilhères’ funeral monument… The others wouldn’t have had any clue what he was talking about, nor would they have cared, but it was always interesting to see how they reacted to his obscure chunks of knowledge, and it was somehow cathartic to allow his brain to spill forth some of the superfluous information it seemed to absorb like a sponge over many years of living incredibly varied lifestyles, some of which were far removed from the violent familiarity of the Fake AH Crew.

 _The_ former _Fake AH Crew._

The thought cruelly invaded his mind.

Jack and Geoff were gone already. He knew that.

_He wanted to leave too._

He felt like he could. He couldn’t describe exactly how, but it felt like that was an option. Just go. Leave.

The cargobob sank into the sea, churning the surrounding water and upsetting the flotsam Geoff’s body was positioned on. Ryan somehow knew it was too late for him already, but saw Jeremy breathe his name as Geoff’s body sank into the abyss below.

_'He’s chasing after Jack. Just like always.'_

Part of Ryan wanted to chase them too.

But there was Jeremy. Still clutching his body. Clinging to him, full of desperate hope and misguided optimism, spurred on only by sheer determination and strength of will.

Ryan couldn’t leave him like this. Alone.

He needed to know. He needed to make sure he’d be ok, even if all he could do was wait and see.

~

Jeremy wasted no time locating the life raft, hauling Ryan’s useless body onto it, taking up valuable space aboard what should be his salvation. Ryan found himself scolding Jeremy for being so foolish. When Jeremy bolstered the raft with the tires from the cargobob’s landing gear, Ryan couldn’t have been prouder. There was no physical sensation to accompany the feeling, but Ryan knew he should have felt his chest swell with pride. And really, how he should have felt was all that mattered now.

He was trapped in his own useless dead body. Contained in this infernal flesh-prison, unmoving, unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling, but completely aware of everything. It was surreal, but it had an odd familiarity to it.

Like watching himself from within his own mind.

That was a concept he understood all too well. It was not a feeling he was overly fond of.

Being a passenger.

 _Being a burden._ A quiet part of his mind scorned him. _Poor Jeremy, hauling your dead ass along with him. This is why you shouldn’t get close to people. You’re dead and you’re still hurting people._

_Bullshit. Shut up._

He’d have done the same for Jeremy. In a heartbeat. He wasn’t going to let himself feel guilty about this.

But there it was.

_Jeremy could have saved himself if you hadn’t gotten close._

Jeremy was determined, Ryan could tell. He wanted to tell him to keep going, to cheer him on as he paddled doggedly for what seemed like an eternity. Any trace of Michael and Gavin had vanished. Ryan couldn’t tell if they’d given up and moved on or found some way to hang in there. At any rate, it was an impossible task for Jeremy to find them. Ryan could only take comfort in the fact that they had been together…

It suddenly occurred to him why, even though he was clearly dead, Jeremy hadn’t been able to leave him behind.

_‘At least we’re together, right?’_

For the briefest of moments, it almost looked as if Jeremy could hear him. Ryan dismissed the thought.

_‘I get it; you don’t want to be alone. I wouldn’t either.’_

_You can’t deal with being alone on a good day._ Ryan’s internal monologue lectured him. _You can’t stay out of your own head and it terrifies you._

 _That’s a problem I won’t have to deal with much longer_ , Ryan thought bitterly back to himself.

He was dead and still wrestling with his demons. Was there _ever_ any respite?

He turned his full attention back to Jeremy. They really only had each other now.

_What cold comfort that was._

Jeremy was visibly shaking, hardly moving at all in the water, he’d soon succumb to hypothermia if he stayed in the water. The sun had long since set and Ryan found himself pleading for Jeremy to just get into the raft with him. His cold, dead body could offer no warmth, but maybe some small comfort could still be salvaged. Maybe there was still hope for one of them.

Jeremy pulled his exhausted body onto the raft beside Ryan, flopping down unceremoniously next to him.

If the circumstances had been different, it would have been comical to watch, but the absurdity of it was still amusing enough to Ryan for him to think, ‘ _didn’t you used to be a gymnast?’_

Again, there was a flash of recognition of some kind in Jeremy’s eyes.

“Oh shut up.” Jeremy snapped, almost instinctively, before quickly shutting his mouth, becoming aware his mind might be slipping.

Ryan was curious. Was it coincidence? Or had they somehow made a connection?

He’d always been a sceptic. Assumed people who claimed to have interacted with the dead were either desperate or trying to scam someone. But out here, stranded far from any signs of life under the pale moonlight, he wasn’t sure what he believed anymore.

He found comfort not being alone too.

Jeremy curled in closer to Ryan’s body. He wasn’t fooling himself, no matter how hard he tried. Ryan was too still, too cold, too pale.

“And what were _you_ before all of this?” Jeremy asked quietly.

The words startled Ryan. He hadn’t expected Jeremy to give in to his delusions, but he couldn’t prevent himself from responding.

_‘Would you believe me if I said I was a florist?’_

His words were wordless, but they were there nonetheless.

Jeremy responded with a sound, choked in his throat and Ryan suddenly thought maybe he could somehow understand him.

“Is that why you always kept potted plants on the patio?”

Hope leapt within him at the response, but it was quickly dashed by the sad realization that none of this might even be real… He didn’t care, he _needed_ this. They both did.

If he’d existed in a more corporeal form, he would have been close to tears.

_‘Hey, gardening is a great hobby. I always dreamed of having a proper one, someday.’_

Maybe the boundaries between realities were fuzzy here, on either side of the flimsy boundary delineating life from death, but Ryan didn’t care anymore. He reached out to Jeremy in his thoughts.

“I can see it now,” Jeremy responded aloud, “the fearsome Vagabond, in full war paint, shuffling around some- ” he paused, as if suddenly realising how crazy he must sound to himself, talking to a corpse and barely holding it together.

_‘Go on…’_

Jeremy almost smiled. He swallowed hard and went on, drawing a shaky breath. _For Ryan._

“…some quaint little yard. Watering plants with one of those wacky watering cans,” he coughed a giggle, “the kind that look like an elephant.”

Ryan wished he could have reached out to him physically. To hold him close and tell him he was going to be ok.

Instead, he reached out in the only way he could...

_‘I’ve always been a fan of dogs, personally.’_

~

As the moon climbed higher in the sky, Ryan felt more and more like he was melting into Jeremy’s consciousness. Neither of them wanted to be alone and this was the only way for them to connect. Ryan tried to leave the harder parts of himself behind, bringing fond memories of the crew to the forefront of his thoughts and blocking out the haze of dark imagery and negativity that constantly tried to push its way into his subconscious.

_Not today. For the sake of Lil’ J._

He thought of the others, and hoped Jeremy was thinking of them too: of Gavin posing inane questions and hypothetical situations and everyone just running with it, no matter how outlandish it seemed; Michael’s humming giggle in response as the scenarios spiralled wildly out of the realms of reality; Geoff’s rage at the ridiculousness of it all, which would invariably break down into his unmistakable peals of laughter… they always joked his laugh could cure cancer; Jack’s judicious stance as she pondered the practical implications of whatever was suggested or waited until the last minute for a rare, but perfectly timed snappy comeback that would send the rest of them into hysterics.

Their _family_ , swallowed up by the unforgiving waves.

Ryan sensed Jeremy was thinking it too…

_‘Well, not all of us. Not yet.’_

He willed Jeremy to hold onto some last shred of hope.

But he knew he couldn't do that while he still denied the reality.

Ryan’s body was taking up space in the raft, adding to the weight, putting pressure on the pinhole leak of air that had seen the sides of the inflatable raft become soft and flimsy. Jeremy would never make it to shore with him.

_We’re Battle Buddies. If one of us goes down, the other one has to keep fighting. It’s just the Battle Buddy way._

Jeremy looked like he was lost too deep in thought for it to have registered.

_Please Jeremy, don’t block me out now._

He thought back to before the crash, before the heist, when Jeremy had first joined the crew. Despite his front of confidence, he’d been so unsure of himself. Ryan immediately clicked with him, going out of his way to make sure he felt included, to help him hide any trace of uncertainty from the media, the other gangs, even the rest of the crew. He took him under his wing and helped him find his feet. And in return, Jeremy had helped him open up to the rest of them. Jeremy had brought them all closer. If anyone deserved to survive this, it was him.

But to do that, he’d have to let him go.

They both had to let go...

_‘Let me go buddy.’_

Jeremy’s eyes snapped open, as though he’d finally gotten through to him. They were rimmed red, but dry; a combination of dehydration and effects of exposure and salt air.

If he could have cried, he would have. He knew Ryan was right.

It didn’t stop the pain he felt in his chest as he steeled his nerves to go through with it. He gathered Ryan’s limp body in his arms.

Ryan could feel it just as keenly as if their positions had been reversed. It was like unpicking a piece of himself, and for a moment, neither of them could let go.

Eventually, Jeremy willed his arms to lower Ryan into the sea, his body gently tugged sidelong by the undercurrent, slowly, almost gently, feet-first, descending into the inky blackness below. Jeremy was shaking as he held his hand and squeezed his eyes shut preparing himself to let go.

Ryan was scared.

Terrified, actually.

Jeremy was his last link to the world he knew. The last thing he wanted to hold on to. But if Jeremy was to go on, to survive; he knew it had to be done.

The thought was fleeting, but clear as day to Ryan, and he thought it was a fitting final goodbye.

_‘Now we look like Michelangelo’s ‘God and Adam’. You remember that one, right?’_

Jeremy’s strength left him and he crumpled against the side of the half-deflated raft, sobbing openly against the nylon as his hands remained firmly gripped around Ryan’s own.

Ryan's voice in his head was only slightly comforting. It sounded just as scared as he was.

_‘Hard as it was, God let Adam and Eve go.’_

Ryan fought to make his final thoughts calm and clear and confident.

_‘You can do this, I know you can.’_

And so he did.

Jeremy let go.

As Ryan’s body descended, slipping further and further from everything he knew, he too let go.

He drifted into peaceful uncertainty.

~

Jeremy awoke in the hospital. The doctors assured him he was ok; he was going to be just fine.

 

_'You alright, buddy?’_

Jeremy could still hear Ryan’s voice clearly in his head…

“I want to go home.”

_‘Alright, then. Let’s go.’_

…even though he knew it wasn’t really Ryan’s voice anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to King for letting me add to this incredibly painful and beautiful story.


End file.
